Workout of the Day

Mar 15

Lucky? Unlucky? Irrelevant?

Let's not mince words here: you are where you are today in some part because of luck. This influence of luck is universal. You, the impoverished Haitian villager, the president, and the star track athlete are all living stories written in part by luck.

Take, for example, Bill Gates, who attended a high school that provided access to computer programming tools and opportunities that were unparalleled at the time, attended a university that had nearly unlimited access to computers (again, rare at the time), and retained the rights to a DOS program from IBM that ultimately acted as his jumping-off-point to success.Consider also that a child born in the winter months will be bigger and stronger than his classmates, will therefore have greater opportunities to get on more sports teams as a youth, will have greater leadership opportunities at a younger age, which will lead to stronger college applications, greater leadership opportunities in college, which will result in increased chances for higher salary jobs, health, wealth, etc.We can also take the example of economic researchers, who, because co-authors on publications are listed alphabetically, have a higher chance of promotion and success if their name starts with a letter closer to the beginning of the alphabet.Whether it’s your place of birth, your upbringing, your genetic inheritance, your birth year, being in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time, or any other number of factors, it is undeniable that there is no truly self-made man or woman.

But let's not play fatalistic “woe is me” pity games either. That’s absolutely not the point. By definition, your luck is something that’s already done -- you have no knowing influence over your luck, and to dwell on it and let it define you is an exercise in misdirected energy and deflection of responsibility. Regardless of whether your life is a 90%/10%, 50%/50%, or 10%/90% split between luck and choice, the choice is all that should matter to you.You can take solace and inspiration from the fact that the world is full of people who have accomplished more with less luck, as well as people who have been handed more luck and wasted it all. Yes, luck is part of the equation, but let’s give it a hat tip and move on with what we can do with it.